The NBA announced Friday that training camps for the New Orleans Hornets and the league’s remaining 29 teams have been postponed indefinitely because of the current lockout. The Hornets were scheduled to open training camp Oct. 4. In addition, the NBA has canceled all preseason games scheduled from Oct. 9-15. 

The Hornets’ first home preseason game is not scheduled until Oct. 18 against the Orlando Magic. But the Hornets’ preseason opener at San Antonio on Oct. 9, their Oct. 15 game at Cleveland and Oct. 17 against Oklahoma City in Wichita, Kan., have been canceled.

There has been no progress in negotiations between the league and the players association on a new collective bargaining agreement. The NBA’s lockout began July 1.

“We have regretfully reached the point on the calendar where we are not able to open training camps on time and need to cancel the first week of preseason games,” NBA Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement. “We will make further decisions as warranted.”

It’s a crucial year for the Hornets. Chris Paul can opt out of his contract with New Orleans after this season, and it goes without saying that the franchise would be devastated if Paul left the team. Here are a few ways that the Hornets can build on their spirited first-round performance against the Lakers last season:

- Get Healthy:

After battling injuries for the better part of two regular seasons and seeing his PER drop from 30 in 08-09 to 23.75 in 09-10 and 10-11, Chris Paul used the first round of the playoffs to show everybody that when CP3 is on his game, he’s as good as anybody in the league. Paul is almost unquestionably the league’s best ballhandler and one of its best passers, and he’s turned himself into one of the league’s best outside shooters as well.

If his knees can stay healthy for a full season, he could give the Hornets a fighting chance at getting into the playoffs and winning a series or two all by himself. He’s that good.

David West is CP3?s sidekick on the court, but a torn ACL suffered late in the year kept him out of the playoffs and could cause him to miss a significant portion of this season. If Paul and West both have healthy knees coming into the playoffs, the Hornets could make some noise. If they don’t, it’s hard to envision them as serious contenders.

- Get Players:

It’s not a state secret that the Hornets’ roster is incredibly thin. Outside of Paul, Jarrett Jack, Emeka Okafor, West, and Trevor Ariza, the Hornets don’t have much, and the team desperately needs to stock the roster with some quality role players and veterans (in other words, not Marco Belinelli), who can knock down the open shots that Paul creates and play some defense.

- Stay Defensive:

The secret of the Hornets’ return to the playoffs was their improved defense. Under Monty Williams, the Hornets were a top-10 team in defensive efficiency last season. If the Hornets can maintain their commitment to defense and become the best defensive team in the Western conference (only the Lakers and Mavericks had a higher defensive efficiency in the West than the Hornets did last season), and simply let a healthy CP3 do his thing on offense, they could end up being a very tough out in the playoffs.

At this time last year, New Orleans Hornets Coach Monty Williams was consumed with putting together plans to conduct his first training camp as the league’s youngest head coach.

Now, with the NBA currently in its first work stoppage since the 1998-99 season, Williams continues to stay busy.

However, instead of making training camp preparations, Williams spent this past week building houses and conducting youth basketball camps in South Africa.

Williams was joined by retired players Dikembe Mutombo, Patrick Ewing and Bo Outlaw as participants in the league’s Basketball Without Borders program.

Like Williams, Memphis Grizzlies Coach Lionel Hollins was among the 20 coaches, former players and front-office executives who made the trip with Williams. However, no current NBA players made the trip.

“I just came to serve,” Williams said by telephone from Johannesburg last week. “The NBA does a pretty good job of putting you in position where you can help other people.”

With the league’s owners and players association decidedly apart on a number of issues, Williams has tried to stay busy. Last month, Williams brought his assistants to a Saints practice.

“I know my wife is probably happy that I got something good to do instead of tearing up the house,” Williams said.

“We don’t have nothing going on right now because of our work situation, so to me it was an easy decision to make to participate in the Basketball Without Borders program.”

The NBA has conducted its Basketball Without Borders program for the past nine years. The program involves hosting instructional camps for youths that promote leadership, education, sportsmanship and healthy living.

Since its inception, more than 100 players and team personnel have participated in camps in Johannesburg and Dakar, Senegal.

“I jumped at the opportunity to return to South Africa with Dikembe and Alonzo (Mourning) to participate,” said Ewing, an assistant with the Orlando Magic. “The African continent has a huge reserve of untapped talent.”

Williams said he has made four trips to South Africa, and the spirit of the residents there continues to inspire him.

“There is a tendency to think that when you come over here to help these people,” Williams said. “But I think they help us because of their situations, and we’re reminded of how good we have it.

“They have a different hunger, they are a lot tougher than I ever thought about being to be able to live in these conditions and smile and be so hospitable is an amazing thing.”

Williams said the group went about 15 miles from Johannesburg and built a home for a family that had been living in a shanty for about 15 years.

“The NBA does a pretty good job of putting you in position where you can help people,” said Williams, who is expected to return to New Orleans today.

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John Reid can be reached at jreid@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3407.

The NBA announced Friday that the Nov. 19 game between the New Orleans Hornets and Orlando Magic from the Amway Center has been added to the NBA TV broadcast schedule.

The tip off time, lockout permitted, will be 6 p.m.

This gives the Hornets seven games telecast by NBA TV.

But New Orleans is still only scheduled to have two games televised as part of the league’s major national cablecast deal, on Thanksgiving night at the Los Angeles Clippers (TNT) and on Feb. 17 at the New York Knicks (ESPN).

All or part of it might never come to pass, but the New Orleans Hornets’ 2011-12 schedule released by the NBA on Tuesday is rich with extended trips, as well as attractive early home games that could also be lost should games be canceled.

The Hornets are tentatively scheduled to open at home Nov. 2 against the Chicago Bulls and reigning league MVP Derrick Rose, then host the defending Eastern Conference champion Miami Heat with its big three of Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and LeBron James on Nov. 9 at the New Orleans Arena.

Both those games could be in jeopardy, however, if history repeats from the last NBA lockout that erased 32 games of the 1998-99 regular season, which didn’t begin until February 1999.

Home games against the NBA champion Dallas Mavericks (Dec. 21) and Boston Celtics (Dec. 28) also are tenuous.

Three of New Orleans’ four games scheduled against the Mavericks are in the first half of the season, the part of the year most likely to be wiped out, based on past history.

If that holds true, the Hornets would lose six home games against Western Conference playoff teams of a year ago, and six home games against last season’s Eastern Conference playoff participants.

New Orleans could also lose one of its two scheduled nationally televised games if the first part of the schedule is lost. The Hornets are on the TNT schedule Thanksgiving night for a game at the Los Angeles Clippers, as well as the ESPN broadcast slate for a Feb. 17 game at the New York Knicks.

Six Hornets games are scheduled for telecast by NBA TV. More could be added, if the season is played, because of the flexibility the league employs in its national TV scheduling, especially later in the season.

The Hornets also are scheduled for a four-game-in-five-night trip Feb. 15-22 (at Cleveland, New York, Indiana and Dallas), just before the tentative All-Star break, another four-in-five trip from March 5-10 (at Portland, Sacramento, Denver and Minnesota), and a four-game-in-seven-night trip March 26-April 1 (at the Clippers, Golden State, Portland and Phoenix).

If the lockout eliminates games through January, as the last did (the 1999 season began that year for the Hornets on Feb. 5) there are 41 games — half the regular season — scheduled from Feb. 1 until the end of the season in 2012, 19 at New Orleans Arena, 22 on the road.

Should the schedule be played in its entirety — which appears unlikely given that no collective bargaining sessions have been held since the work stoppage commenced July 1 — the Hornets would have several extended road swings, the first of which is a five-game in nine-day trip to the West Coast, including that TV game against the Clippers.

New Orleans would follow that up with another six games away from home in the first three weeks of December.

From a positive standpoint, the regular-season’s two home games against the Los Angeles Lakers (March 14 and April 9) are each in the second half of the season, which could be salvaged based on previous lockout history.

The Hornets are only scheduled to play at the Lakers once, on Nov. 6.

New Orleans has 14 games against Western Conference playoff teams from last season in the final 41 — seven at home, seven away. The Hornets are scheduled to play seven games against Eastern Conference playoff teams from last season, five of those on the road.

The schedule has the Hornets playing three Western Conference foes three times: Phoenix (two road, one home), the Lakers (two home, one road) and Utah (two home, one road).

Don’t etch plans in stone, though. It’s likely should part of the season be lost because of labor unrest, the league will revise much of the schedule that was released Tuesday.

For the first time since coming on board last summer, New Orleans Hornets Coach Monty Williams will have to fill a vacancy on his staff after lead assistant Mike Malone’s departure Tuesday.

Through a text message, Malone said he joined the Golden State Warriors as their top assistant on newly hired Mark Jackson’s staff.

“Been a crazy few days, traveling back to N.O. today,’’ Malone wrote. “I have accepted the job with the Warriors.’’

Malone also was being courted by new Los Angeles Lakers Coach Mike Brown, who offered him their lead assistant job.

Two weeks ago, Malone interviewed for Golden State’s head-coaching vacancy, and he was a candidate for the Houston Rockets’ head-coaching vacancy that was filled by Kevin McHale.

When Malone’s name began to emerge for head-coaching vacancies in April, Williams said he expected teams to come after him.

“I know he’s held in high regard throughout the league, and it’s only a matter of time,’’ Williams said.

Before Williams hired Malone, he had spent five seasons as an assistant with Cleveland. Malone’s father, Brendan Malone, is an assistant with the Orlando Magic and a former head coach of the Cavaliers.

Malone has earned a reputation as a defensive mastermind, helping the Hornets finish fifth in the league in fewest points allowed at 94.9 per game.

“Michael Malone is a guy who I’ve known for quite some time,’’ Jackson said. “They gave me the opportunity to establish my own staff, and he was a guy who I’ve targeted throughout the course of not just this process, but when I’ve interviewed before.

“We had an understanding that I would come after him. It’s truly a great day in Warriorland that we were able to get a guy like Mike Malone because I have tremendous respect for his passion, his knowledge, his commitment. He’s an extremely loyal guy. It’s a big-time hire for us.”

Hornets President Hugh Weber said Malone helped integrate the defensive system used by Williams.

“We all talked about that Mike was going to have a strong future in this league,’’ Weber said. “So we’re not going to hold anybody back.’’

Weber said the Hornets have a plan in place and will be announcing soon whom Malone’s replacement will be.

John Reid can be reached at jreid@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3407.

Sometime in late June, after New Orleans Hornets owner/NBA Commissioner David Stern has presented the Larry O’Brien Trophy to the league’s champion, Monty Williams will park himself in front of a TV screen and begin his self evaluation.

There are no summer reruns on Williams’ schedule, though.

“How many times can you watch ‘Law and Order’ or ‘House?’” Williams said. “By next week, I’ll be ready to get back at it. It’s how I learn about things. I learned a lot about this team last year before I took the job, by watching all the games. And I love basketball. Pretty soon the playoffs will be over and we won’t have anything to watch.

“I’ll just throw the games in, take my notes. It’s how I can get better for me as a coach. It’s an easy one for me. And how they do the games now, I don’t have to listen. I can turn the volume down and it just goes through play by play by play. I can just click through a game. It’s a lot easier.”

There will be 96 games for Williams to view — 82 regular-season games, six playoff games and eight exhibitions — that’s nearly 100 performances to critique.

And Williams, who is intensely critical, expects to see an awful lot on which he can improve.

That’s a message Williams shared with his players one week ago, as they convened for the last time at the New Orleans Arena, the morning after the Hornets were eliminated in six games from the first round of the Western Conference playoffs by the two-time defending champion Lakers.

“From my side,” said Williams, “we have to get better as players. No matter what the situation is, whether it’s working on your jump shot, working on understanding schemes and strategies, guys have to get better. Along those lines, I made them a promise that I was going to get better as coach. I see from watching film now, I’m seeing areas where I need to get better. We all have a ways to go.”

Williams’ coaching pedigree was created by his working relationships as a player and coach under a group of mentors who collectively have won 11 NBA championships.

His two most recent teachers, San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich and Portland’s Nate McMillan — who has yet to win a championship — were avid offseason video watchers, Williams said, traits he’s borrowing while adding his own nuances.

“Nate watches film like you wouldn’t believe,” Williams said. “And Pop used to watch these projects: have the (video) guy take the last five minutes of every playoff game, and they would watch it as a staff. He’d already watched it. He watched a ton of European games. That’s something I want to implement as well. Both of the guys I’ve worked for just watched film.

“Now whether they do it the way I’m going to do it, probably not. I’m just taking some things from them and adding it to what I want to do.”

In reality, Williams’ offseason learning experience began during the Hornets’ series against the Lakers, where he observed Lakers Coach Phil Jackson, who has won 11 NBA titles.

When the two coaches met at midcourt last Thursday night after Los Angeles’ close-out win, ordinarily caustic Jackson had some kind words for Williams’ work and his team’s, so much so that Williams walked back to share a few more thoughts with Jackson before each departed for their respective dressing rooms.

“Coach Jackson has the ability to back off and let it kind of develop and happen, and can with that kind of talent,” said Williams. “But I liked his way with the referees, with his players. Never embarrassed a guy, but he got his point across. I’ve watched, and every once in a while I’d look down there and see him kind of talking to a guy. It was interesting the way he did things.”

And just what did Jackson offer to Williams afterward?

“He said some pretty positive things about our team,” said Williams. “When he first came up to me, he said, ‘Congratulations’ and all that and was talking about how much we improved. And then I just went back over and said, ‘Coach, I appreciate the positive things you’ve said about us.’

“You know, he’s said some things about New Orleans, and I don’t get into all that. I could say some things about L.A. that you guys would print. But I’m not going to do that. I tend to look at the good things he said about our team. And those are things that we can build off. I took it as an honor to be able to coach against him in his last year. He may be the winningest coach in the history of sports. And I had a chance to coach against him.”

The Hornets improved from 39 wins a year ago and a place in the NBA lottery to 46 victories this year and a playoff spot.

Williams concedes, however, there are numerous areas in which he can improve his coaching skill-set.

“I have a number of regrets this year,” he said. “I told the guys I wasn’t going to get into the summertime and be on my RV trip and say ‘I wish I would have done XYZ.’ I don’t think I have those. The regret I have is maybe saying too much, or doing too much, or maybe overcoaching situations. I’m not afraid to admit I have the same insecurities as any other man. And when you’re a young coach, you try to prove you’re this or that as a coach.

“There were times where I probably could have just taken a deep breath, burped, and backed off of the situation and let it happen. I thought that could have hurt us a little bit this year, maybe hurt a player’s growth. So backing off is probably one of the things I wish I could have done.”

Nonetheless, Williams charted a course through his rookie season that few first-year coaches have experienced: the offseason unhappiness of the face of the franchise, an early season takeover of ownership by the league, personal tragedies suffered by members of the team, a devastating late-season injury to the leading scorer.

All ordeals, Williams noted, that have formed a foundation for the future.

“I’ve been talking to some people I confide in, older people, mentors if you will, and their interpretations was ‘Monty, you got a lesson this year that a lot of guys won’t get in 20 years of coaching in the NBA,’” Williams said.

“So I’m going to look at those situations and try to apply them as much as I can, what to do going forward. But I don’t think they’ll help me until we go through other situations. Now I have a reference point that not many rookie coaches have.”

Jimmy Smith can be reached at jsmith@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3814.

Los Angeles — Among many, there were two moments from Chris Paul’s brilliant performance Sunday afternoon in the New Orleans Hornets’ 109-100 victory against the host Los Angeles Lakers in Game 1 of a Western Conference playoff series that are equal testimony to his on-court virtuosity.

The first came with 2:24 remaining in the second quarter when Paul rifled a 30-foot, one-handed pass to Aaron Gray for an easy layup, what was Paul’s 10th assist, that gave the Hornets a 47-38 lead.

The second came with 4:58 remaining in the third quarter when Paul, at the top of the key, executed an ankle-breaking cross-over dribble that floored Lakers guard Derek Fisher, leaving Paul an unobstructed passing lane where he found Emeka Okafor for an easy slam.

Those two plays at once exposed the Lakers’ aging reflexes and reinforced Paul’s place as the league’s preeminent point guard, ascending the playoff stage where no one — emphasize no one — has accumulated postseason numbers that included scoring and assist averages greater than 20 and 10.

After Sunday’s 33-point, 14-assist effort, Paul’s 18-game playoff averages stand at 22.5 and 11.2.

“Just as a player,” said Hornets backup point guard Jarrett Jack, one of Paul’s best friends. “You marvel at the ability he has.”

If you group every one of the NBA’s best points-assists players together, in the history of the league, Paul’s career playoff totals are at the top.

Magic Johnson, 19.5 points, 12.3 assists.

Oscar Robertson, 22.2 points, 8.9 assists.

Isiah Thomas, 20.4 points, 8.9 assists.

Jerry West, 29.1 points, 6.3 assists.

Michael Jordan, 33.4 points, 5.7 assists.

John Stockton, 13.4 points, 10.1 assists.

Bob Cousy, 18.5 points, 8.6 assists.

Kobe Bryant, 25.6 points, 4.8 assists.

Larry Bird, 23.8 points, 6.5 assists.

On Sunday, in New Orleans’ win over the two-time defending champion Lakers, Paul proved once and for all, nobody does it better.

“Sometimes,” Hornets Coach Monty Williams said, “I tend to mess with the game by trying to run too many basketball sets when I just need to give him the ball and let him go to work.”

Following an injury-plagued, loss-filled 2009-10 season that came on the heels of a year in which Paul and his team were embarrassed in a five-game, first-round playoff loss to the Denver Nuggets, this season he put up the most anemic regular-season scoring numbers in his career: 15.9 points.

Yet that figure was as much a result of the Hornets’ methodical offensive tendencies as it was Paul’s deferential attitude that he carried through most of the regular season, opting to set up teammates and many times passing up open looks.

On Sunday, Paul combined to not only feed open teammates, but he was pulling up for jumpers and often stepping back to create his own shots when the Lakers’ big men, most notably Pau Gasol, got caught in switches and were forced to guard Paul one-on-one.

“I was just making shots,” Paul said Monday. “That’s all it was. I was trying to pick my spots. Guys were taking shots, and we were aggressive. We got out in transition, and I think that’s when we’re at our best.

“It’s the same (defensive) thing they do just about every time we play. It just looks a lot different if I make a shot or two. Seriously, I mean I’m sure they came out with the same mind-set to do what they’ve been doing all year.”

But Sunday, Paul was exploiting the Lakers, making them pay for every defensive breakdown, no matter how slight.

In the last five minutes, shortly after Los Angeles had trimmed New Orleans’ lead to three — 90-87 — after two free throws by Ron Artest, Paul went on to score 15 points and assist on one more basket while the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant would go 0-for-4.

And while Paul was still deferring the platitudes, Jack conceded that Paul’s performance was nonetheless personally enjoyable.

“I know how desperately he wanted to be in the playoffs (again) in his position last year after being in it consecutive seasons,” Jack said. “To miss it because of injury, something you can’t control, adds insult to injury. At least if you can say, ‘I gave it my all, and we didn’t make it.’… Nobody wants to just sit on the sidelines and just idly watch your team go through the struggles they went through.

“Obviously, it’s gratifying. But I hope people don’t think because of the game he had yesterday he’s satisfied with that or any of us are. There’s a lot of work left to be done, and we’ve got to go out there on Wednesday just like it’s 0-0.”

But what Paul did Sunday probably did answer questions surrounding the health of his body and his game, Jack said.

“And doing it at his size and stature is a thing that goes unnoticed at times,” Jack said. “I think some people really don’t understand — and I don’t want it to sound like I’m saying he’s tiny — but how short he is and how difficult it is to finish over those big guys and shoot over guys like Pau Gasol with a seven-foot wingspan, and they’re already 7 feet on top of that.

“He’s giving up maybe a foot and half. Doing some of the things he does, and being able to do it in the lane amongst those trees, is a phenomenal thing. He might have answered a few (questions), but he hasn’t answered all of them yet.”

Less than a week ago, moments after the Hornets’ final regular-season game and a third consecutive loss, Paul wondered if the team would be able to “flip that switch” and reverse its recent stretch of poor play in time for the beginning of the playoffs.

The efforts Sunday indicated the switch had been flipped, the spotlight illuminated, and Paul had stepped, center-stage, into its warm glow.

“I’ve been saying all along, ‘Just get us to the playoffs, and we’ve got a chance,’ ” Paul said. “I just tried to have a different intensity (Sunday), and hopefully, the guys fed off that.”

After the final shot was made Wednesday night against the Houston Rockets, New Orleans Hornets guard Marco Belinelli, who entered the league in 2007, basked in the glory of earning his first trip to the playoffs.

On Thursday, he dealt with the reality of not wanting a quick exit from the playoffs, knowing the best-case scenario for the Hornets is to avoid the two-time defending champion Los Angeles Lakers in the first round.

“They are the best team in the league, and they’ve got really big guys under the basket, and it’s tough to score,” Belinelli said. “All the games against them during the season were tough, and they played good defense.”

If the Hornets (45-33) end the regular season as the seventh seed, they probably would face the second-seeded Lakers. San Antonio has clinched the No. 1 seed.

Among the six teams that have clinched a playoff spot in the Western Conference, the Lakers are the only team the Hornets haven’t beaten this season. The Lakers swept all four games.

In their final regular-season meeting last month, the Lakers routed the Hornets 102-84 at the Staples Center with Kobe Bryant scoring 30. Hornets Coach Monty Williams said contending with the Lakers’ length was their primary problem in all four games.

When you have (7-footers) Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol sitting there waiting on Chris (Paul), it makes it hard, Williams said. When we don’t shoot as well, it makes it hard. There are certain teams we have had success against, and one team (Lakers) we haven’t had any success against, and there is a chance we could play that team.

With four games remaining, the Hornets could fall anywhere from the fifth seed to having to face the Spurs (60-19) as the eighth and final seed.

They also could face the Oklahoma City Thunder, if the Hornets land the sixth seed, and the fourth-seeded Thunder move ahead of the third-seeded Mavericks, who are only a game ahead of the Thunder after four consecutive losses.

Perhaps, the Hornets’ best-case scenario is facing the Mavericks (53-25), who have lost 11 consecutive games at the New Orleans Arena.

The Hornets have won two of the three games against the Mavericks this season with one more game to play, in the finale April 13 in Dallas.

“We just have to go out and play the way we are capable of playing every night, and let the seedings take care of themselves,” Williams said. “We want to go into the playoffs with a certain rhythm and keep our flow as far as defense is concerned, and approach every game the same way.”

After Wednesday nights 101-93 playoff clinching victory against the Rockets, the Hornets moved ahead of the Portland Trail Blazers for the sixth seed.

If the Trail Blazers beat Utah late Thursday night, they would move back ahead of the Hornets, who would fall to seventh.

Its a good feeling to know that were in, but now it is about staying there, guard Chris Paul said. You hear people say it all the time, you never want to back into the playoffs. We want to go full steam ahead, so there is no questions about what were going to do.

The Hornets play the Phoenix Suns tonight at the Arena before traveling to play the eighth-seeded Memphis Grizzles on Sunday afternoon. The Hornets play Utah on Monday night at the Arena.

The Hornets are returning to the playoffs for the first time since the 2008-09 season.

Were not going into a playoff series intimidated by anybody or worried about anything like that, forward Trevor Ariza said. Well just try and get the best seed we can.

John Reid can be reached at jreid@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3407.